Pressure to save money has left 90% of primary care trusts restricting procedures including hip, knee and cataract operations, weight loss surgery and tonsillectomies, according to freedom of information requests by GP Magazine.

Health rationing, sometimes cutting across national guidance on the treatment of conditions, was leaving patients very frustrated, according to one senior GP; it was creating waiting lists by the back door, according to another. The National Obesity Forum said cuts in bariatric surgery could lead to crippling extra costs from diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

GP magazine said information released by 101 of the 151 primary care trusts showed nine in 10 had procedures to restrict GP referrals for procedures thought to be non-urgent or of low clinical value. Limits on cataract surgery have been ordered in two-thirds of trusts, while six in 10 restricted weight-loss surgery and hip and knee operations.

The latest evidence of increasing curbs on surgery deemed non-urgent or of low clinical value follows investigations by the Guardian last October, which suggested cuts in frontline services were having a major impact. Bruce Keogh, the NHS's medical director, told local service leaders last September there must be no blanket bans on treatment on the basis of cost. The latest information prompted ministerial warnings that action would be taken against NHS organisations for restricting treatments on that basis alone.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, said: "It is scandalous for patients to face agonising decisions about paying for treatments privately as the NHS stops offering key services. Labour warned that this government was encouraging the acceleration of a postcode lottery and now we have it in black and white. The health secretary [Andrew Lansley] has a duty to promote a comprehensive National Health Service, but on his watch the N has been taken out of NHS – random rationing taking place across the health service."

Burnham said the "chaos" being inflicted on the health service by its reorganisation meant haphazard decisions on treatments were being made in a desperate bid to save money.

Patients need to be treated fairly and consistently said Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's GP committee. "The reality is that this is simply a cost-saving exercise. PCTs now, and clinical commissioning groups in the future, need to be much more open and explain why such lists are needed."

Julian Spinks, a Kent GP, said trusts were introducing waiting lists by the back door. "People are not getting treatment or having to wait until they get worse, but the government and the NHS can say they're meeting targets."

David Haslam, a GP who chairs the National Obesity Forum, said: "Bariatric surgery is amongst the most clinically effective and cost effective area in any field of medicine. Patients gain massive clinical improvements, including resolution of diabetes, and even the most cynical fat-phobic taxpayer should rejoice, because of the huge fiscal savings to the wider economy."

Simon Burns, the health minister, said: "Decisions on treatments, including suitability for surgery, should be made by clinicians based on what is most clinically appropriate for the patient and take the individual patient's needs into account.

"No right-thinking person could possibly understand how anyone could delay a patient's treatment unnecessarily. If patients need treatment, they should get it when they want it and where they want it. If local health bodies stop patients from having treatments on the basis of cost alone we will take action against them."